Watch out for:

1) Cell phones: The smart phone will become the new credit card and will accelerate the growth of micro charging. Already we are seeing this in areas such as  the payment of parking meter charges. Increasingly  online content will be delivered to hand held devices

2) Storage : The cost of content storage has fallen dramatically. This has helped accelerate the growth of the SaaS (software as a service) model where data and operating systems are stored centrally and accessed via the web anytime, anywhere from  any internet connected device

3) Open source : Sharing knowledge and applications has greatly sped up development. At one time software providers closely guarded their code but now companies like Apple have allowed developers access to their API  and this has seen a huge explosion in the growth of applications for devices like the iPhone especially as developers get to share the revenue generated by their application.

4) More two way communication: No longer is communication one way. Customers can now communicate with suppliers via blogs, social media and rating sites. Viral marketing can be very powerful (both positively and negatively where a company screws up)

5) Online recommendation: Buying a new computer, car,  boat or going to a new holiday destination. Now you can access uncensored reviews by other users, actual customers buying the same product. A disgruntled customer can do an incredible amount of damage but conversely  happy customer’s posting positive reviews can be invaluable. Specialist sites such as www.yelp.com allow consumers to post reviews on restaurants, shopping etc

6) Social media: The growth of social networking has been phenomenal. Starting with students and young people social media has spread to many special interest groups  including the business market with sites like eCademy (www.ecademy.com) and linked in (www.linkedin.com) offering business communication and services and networking

7) Ebook growth: Devices like Amazons low cost Kindle reader will result in big changes in publishing. Magazines available as flip books via hosting sites such as issuu www.issuu.com and others are helping change the way we read and receive knowledge. Today’s technology can closely replicate the feel of reading a magazine or book but with huge cost savings to the publisher

8)Payment for content: A huge issue for newspapers around the world who set the scene for the net by supplying content for free is a model that is simply not sustainable in the long term as tradiotional advertising revenues decline and people access news online rather than by  buying a physical newspaper

10) Access and collaboration: The growth in free hosting sites (www.dropbox.com) allows users to upload huge  files and access them anywhere anytime and to share selected files with others is a big future trend. No longer do you have to keep files on your laptop or on a memory stick. Well known programmes such as Googles Picasa(www.picasa.com) set the scene for the holding and sharing of photographs now any type of file can live in the “cloud”